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China Wants to Dig the Nicaragua Canal

The economics don’t add up, but the project serves both governments’ larger interests.

By

Mary Anastasia O’Grady

Aug. 9, 2015 6:29 p.m. ET

Like a lot of Chinese economic decisions these days, the proposal by Hong Kong development company HKND to build an artificial waterway across Nicaragua is beginning to look like all hat, and no canal. Yet economics aside, China may still see the ditch as part of a military strategy, and President Daniel Ortega may see it as a way to expand his business empire.

It’s hard to make an economic case for a Nicaragua canal. Nicaragua originally estimated the cost of the 172-mile waterway at $40 billion and now it’s $50 billion....